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THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY: THE MAKING OF FRED ROSE, M.P. Communists for their own utilitarian reasons (and vice versa the Communists with King), but even some newspaper editors did so too. The Gazette, a Montreal newspaper, will be a major source here. Finally, the results of the byelection will be presented with a conclusion. Who was Fred Rose? This is not so mundane a question since Rose’s birth name was actually Fishel Rosenberg, born in Lublin, Poland in 1907 to Jewish parents there.? His family arrived and settled in Montreal in 1920. This was fortuitous since Rose had already received French language instruction at the Gymnase Humaniste de Lublin before arriving in Montreal (Levy, The Montreal Review). This earlier education, along with the English language education Rose received at Baron Byng high school, made it possible for him to represent both francophone and anglophone workers in political and union activities beginning in 1925 (The Gazette. May 16, 1986, Cl; Levy, The Montreal Review). Rose became an active communist and a major organizer of workers in working-class Montreal, where miserable conditions in the dressmaking sweatshops existed, especially after the calamitous effects of the Great Depression and the resulting unemployment occurred. But organizing labour strikes, especially by a Communist Party member, was then illegal under Article 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada. This led to Fred Rose and four other communists being arrested and charged under Article 98 in 1931, and Rose spent nearly a year in jail (Weisbord 27-28, 35). His imprisonment on behalf of the Montreal working class only boosted Rose’s political profile and helped him start his first political campaign in the federal riding of Cartier in the October 1935 federal election. The federal riding of Cartier existed in the center of Montreal from 1925 to 1968. Its then population likely had a majority Jewish population, which was mostly working class, along with a large number of mainly working class French Canadian and Eastern European groupings.’ Rose first ran there under the name Fred Rosenberg as a Communist and received 3,385 votes, finishing a Clear but distant second from the Liberal winner in Cartier. He then ran in the August 1936 Quebec provincial election and received 578 votes in Montreal-Saint-Louis, finishing a distant third behind the Liberal winner.’ By the w It was not unusual then for Jewish families to change their names since it made their names more understandable and, for those Jews who wished to assimilate, get ahead in Canadian society. For the boundaries of Cartier see https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/ElectionsRidings/Ridings/Profile?Organizationld=1765. For where Jews lived in Montreal, see Mordecai Richler’s novel, Son ofa Smaller Hero (Richler 14-15). Regarding Cartier’s population, itishard to find precise figures. Paul Masse, the Bloc Populaire candidate in the August 9th byelection, stated that the riding was 55% French Canadian, 25% Jewish, and 20% of Canadian of Hungarian, Polish and Slovak descent (The Gazette, July 30, 1943, 19). In contrast, The Canadian Forum had it at “approximately 55% Jewish, 35% French speaking and 10% other voters of mixed nationalities” (The Canadian Forum, September 1943, vol. 23, no. 272, 126). Rose’s percentage of the vote in both elections were similar: 16.28% federally and 16.8% provincially. The boundaries of Cartier covered the then largely Jewish working-class district along The Main (the colloquial term for St. Laurent Blvd.) in Montreal. > u + 165 +
